Connie Gault doesn’t consider herself a Prairie writer. The author of the novel A Beauty, recently published by McClelland & Stewart, lives in Regina; her previous novel, Euphoria, won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction. But Gault bristles at the suggestion that she should be typecast as a regional writer. “Or even, actually, a Canadian writer. I don’t think most writers do. I think most of us want to be thought of without labels. On the other hand, I tend to write about Saskatchewan.”
Gault’s attitude encapsulates a tension inherent in the very idea of Prairie writing and publishing. It speaks of the kind of adventurous, expansionist mentality that opened up the west in the first place – a pioneer spirit that Hurtig embodied, and that can still be felt halfway into the second decade of the 21st century – and also of a reticence to hitch one’s wagon to a region that frequently gets overlooked.
“I live in Regina,” says Gault, “and I’m writing about an area in rural Saskatchewan that I don’t live in and wouldn’t actually want to, because I like cities. So, I am apart from it. I am looking at it from a distance. And I think distance is important.”
The urban/rural divide looms large in the mythology of the Prairies. A huge expanse of land, comprising three provinces spread out over 1.78 million square kilometres, the Prairies are nevertheless sparsely populated – the entire province of Manitoba has fewer people than are packed into Metropolitan Toronto. But a thriving economy, largely based in the energy sector, has spurred migration to the region, especially Alberta. According to a 2014 National Post article, Alberta is on track to take over from B.C. as Canada’s third most populous province (after Ontario and Quebec) by the year 2038.
“There is something peculiar about Winnipeg that actually holds people and in some cases is attracting people from other centres” – Gregg Shilliday
Yet, according to Maurice Mierau, editor of the Winnipeg Review, despite it boasting a wealth of talented writers, especially in the area of fiction, young people with ambitions to publish seem to be fleeing the region. Mierau enumerates the regional writers who have made a mark on the national literary scene – people like Guy Vanderhaeghe, Sandra Birdsell, Miriam Toews, and David Bergen – but notes that they are all “at least in their fifties.” Ambitious younger writers who want to make a name for themselves, Mierau says, don’t stay put the way they used to.
“A lot of talented younger people who are interested in writing are leaving the region. There’s been a few tourists who checked out the oil sands then fled back to Coach House to publish their books. But, I don’t see those people making their careers here, the way it happened in previous generations.”
At least one locale remains immune to this so-called “brain drain,” according to Gregg Shilliday, founder of Great Plains. The city of Winnipeg remains attractive to young writers and other artists, Shilliday claims.
“There is something peculiar about Winnipeg that actually holds people and in some cases is attracting people from other centres,” he says. “For every Miriam Toews who has moved out to Toronto, I’d say that probably a few Torontonians, and certainly Calgarians and Edmontonians and so on, moved here because it’s a little bit cheaper and there’s a good music scene.”